Reimagining Learning Through AI and Extended Reality
Dr. Maggie Mosher
About the Author
Dr. Mosher is a pioneer at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), student goal attainment, and educational innovation. As an assistant research professor at the University of Kansas, and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, she leads national efforts to integrate AI into K-12 and higher education systems and bridges the gap between high-level technological innovation and practical learning realities.
The problem highlighted in this brief
Artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR) have tremendous potential to improve accessibility, personalization, and instructional efficiency for students with disabilities (Marino et al., 2023; Mosher et al., 2022; Seung et al., 2025). However, many educators continue to face barriers to adopting these technologies effectively, including limited AI literacy, concerns about privacy and bias, insufficient professional development, and heavy administrative workloads (Goldman et al., 2024; Mosher et al., 2024). Dr. Maggie Mosher argues that the greatest challenge is not the technology itself, but ensuring that evidence-based innovations reach teachers and students in meaningful, sustainable ways. Thoughtful implementation requires educators to understand when and how AI should be used, while keeping human judgment, accessibility, and student needs at the center of instructional decision-making.
Why does this topic matter to teacher preparation?
Teacher preparation programs play a vital role in developing educators who can evaluate, implement, and critically reflect on emerging technologies. Rather than simply introducing AI or extended reality tools, preparation programs should cultivate AI literacy, ethical decision-making, and instructional design skills that enable teachers to select technologies aligned with student needs (Mosher et al., 2024). As Dr. Mosher emphasizes, educators must learn to use AI as one tool among many while maintaining human-centered instruction that promotes accessibility, inclusion, and meaningful learning for students with disabilities.
About This Brief
The brief begins with context on the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR) in supporting students with disabilities and the opportunities and challenges these technologies present for educators. Readers will learn how AI and immersive technologies can reduce teacher workload, enhance accessibility, and provide personalized learning experiences while maintaining a human-centered approach. Drawing from Dr. Maggie Mosher's research and professional experiences, the brief also highlights practical strategies for building AI literacy, implementing AI ethically and responsibly, and preparing educators to leverage emerging technologies to improve learning outcomes for students with disabilities.
Research and Practice Context
Reimagining Learning Through AI and Extended Reality
This brief features Dr. Maggie Mosher's work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, extended reality, and special education. Drawing from her experiences as a special educator, researcher, and individual with multiple disabilities, Dr. Mosher discusses how emerging technologies can expand access, reduce teacher workload, and improve learning opportunities for students with disabilities. The interview explores practical applications of AI and XR, implementation challenges, and implications for teacher preparation and future educational innovation.
The following are key insights shared by Dr. Maggie Mosher on this research. The interview focused on seven questions about learning through AI and XR.
Conversation with Dr. Maggie Mosher
Q1: What issues are you trying to address through your work?
Dr. Mosher's work focuses on bridging the gap between evidence-based practices and their implementation in everyday classrooms. She explains that special educators often face overwhelming workloads, including individualized instruction, IEP development, progress monitoring, and collaboration with families and service providers, which can limit their ability to deliver effective instruction consistently. She argues that AI can reduce these administrative burdens and improve student outcomes, but only if educators receive high-quality training that enables them to integrate AI thoughtfully, ethically, and purposefully into their practice. Rather than replacing teachers, AI should empower them to spend more time supporting students and implementing evidence-based instruction.
Dr. Mosher: “The core challenge I'm trying to address is the gap between what we know works for students with disabilities and what actually reaches them at scale… AI has genuine potential to address that burden while simultaneously improving outcomes for students, but it only will work if we integrate it thoughtfully and really train teachers well on how to use it.”
Q2: As both a researcher and a person with disabilities, how has your lived experience shaped the way you think about educational technology and accessibility?
Dr. Mosher explained that her lived experiences as a person with multiple disabilities and as a student in an under-resourced community fundamentally shaped her perspective on educational technology. She described how an early AI chatbot, ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity), gave her a voice and enabled opportunities that transformed her educational journey. These experiences led her to view AI not as an end in itself, but as a problem-solving tool that can expand access and opportunity. Rather than adopting technology because it is new or innovative, educators should begin by identifying a learner's needs and then selecting the technology or any other support that best addresses those needs. This human-centered, needs-first approach remains the foundation of her work in AI and accessibility.
Dr. Mosher: “AI shouldn't be used just for the sake of using cool new technology… when students and teachers look at what the problem is and find the actual tool that solves that problem… that's where the real spark of genius comes in, and we can really see change.”
Q3: Can you walk us through your work on AI and XR to support learning for students with disabilities?
Dr. Mosher described an AI-enhanced extended reality (XR) social skills program that teaches over 180 social skills across more than 140 immersive scenarios spanning school, home, and community environments. The program combines direct instruction, natural consequences, observational learning, and personalized feedback within a game-like experience that promotes engagement while preserving students' dignity. Rather than placing students in visible social skills groups, the XR environment allows them to practice independently in a safe, repeatable setting, improving skills such as communication, self-regulation, and turn-taking. Because learners can rehearse across multiple realistic contexts, they are better able to generalize newly acquired skills to authentic everyday situations. To support implementation, Dr. Mosher's team also developed VOISS (AI Voice Advisor), which provides educators with free lesson plans, evidence-based practice resources, and instructional videos that can be immediately applied in classrooms.
Dr. Mosher: “This allows them to do it on their own time, whenever it's convenient, and it feels like a game, not necessarily like I don't know something that I now need to learn. Students with disabilities are able to practice this now in a safe, repeatable, immersive environment with personalized feedback.”
Q4: What barriers do you see preventing schools and educators from adopting AI and XR technologies more effectively?
Dr. Mosher identified several major barriers to the effective adoption of AI and XR in education. Because AI technologies evolve more rapidly than research, educators often lack clear evidence to guide implementation. She emphasized the importance of AI literacy, particularly understanding data privacy, misinformation, bias, and appropriate tool selection. Teachers need to recognize which AI systems protect student data, how to evaluate the reliability of AI-generated information, and how biases in training data may affect students with disabilities and other underrepresented populations. Finally, she cautioned against over-reliance on AI, arguing that educators and students must continue to exercise critical thinking. AI should support human decision-making rather than replace it, with teachers maintaining responsibility for evaluating and refining AI-generated outputs.
Dr. Mosher: “The first barrier is data privacy… the misinformation… bias in the training is really another critical barrier… and then over-reliance… your critical thinking has to go in first, and then let AI take those ideas… AI cannot be the person at the end.”
Q5: How should teacher preparation programs help future educators think about AI and immersive technologies?
Dr. Mosher recommends that teacher preparation programs move beyond teaching educators how to use AI and instead help them understand how to evaluate AI critically and ethically. She introduced her ETHICS framework, which guides educators through evaluating data privacy and bias, selecting appropriate AI tools, considering human and societal impacts, understanding AI fundamentals, recognizing legal and policy contexts, and ensuring safety and fairness. This framework promotes AI literacy as a multidimensional competency, preparing future educators to make informed decisions about AI and immersive technologies while protecting students and supporting equitable, responsible implementation.
Dr. Mosher: “The first thing that happens is you teach students to evaluate… evaluate that data privacy… find out the tool you're using, who created it, why did they create it, how biased is it?... Understanding the inner workings… the context and governance… and the safety and fairness. I think that is what really makes a huge difference in what we're trying to teach.”
Q6: Looking ahead, what opportunities and unanswered questions excite you most about the future of AI and XR in education?
Dr. Mosher envisions AI and XR transforming education through personalized, data-driven instruction and immersive learning experiences. She believes AI can help educators analyze complex student data, generate individualized intervention recommendations, and reduce reliance on repetitive assessments by enabling more authentic, real-world learning tasks. She also highlights the powerful combination of AI with extended reality, where students can safely practice academic, social, and vocational skills while receiving immediate, personalized feedback. Beyond student learning, Dr. Mosher sees AI as a means of automating administrative tasks, allowing teachers to spend more time teaching, differentiating instruction, and supporting students directly. Together, these innovations have the potential to make instruction more personalized, scalable, and sustainable while improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities.
Resources and References
Goldman, S. R., Taylor, J., Carreon, A., & Smith, S. J. (2024). Using AI to support special education teacher workload. Journal of Special Education Technology, 39(3), 434-447.
Marino, M. T., Vasquez, E., Dieker, L., Basham, J., & Blackorby, J. (2023). The future of artificial intelligence in special education technology. Journal of Special Education Technology, 38(3), 404-416.
Mosher, M. A., Carreon, A. C., Craig, S. L., & Ruhter, L. C. (2022). Immersive technology to teach social skills to students with autism spectrum disorder: A literature review. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 9(3), 334-350.
Mosher, M., Dieker, L., & Hines, R. (2024). The past, present, and future use of artificial intelligence in teacher education. Journal of Special Education Preparation, 4(2), 6-17.
Seung, Y., Basham, J. D., Kim, T., & Lohoefener, J. (2025). Exploring Artificial Intelligence Integration and Student‐AI Interaction in K‐12 Education: A Scoping Review. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 41(6), e70144.
Suggested Citation
Seung, Y., Mosher, M. A., & the CIDDL Team. (2026). Reimagining Learning Through AI and Extended Reality. The Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.